Housing affordability important to 76% of San Diegans

San Diego Foundation poll highlights locals' priorities

Sterling Alvarado, 6625 Alvarado Road, San Diego: This student-housing project features 320 apartments. The asking rent for units ranges from $1,025 for a studio to $3,100 for a 4-bedroom unit. Move-in is scheduled for August. Amenities include swimming pools, fitness center and tanning beds. Photo courtesy of the Dinerstein Companies.

Sterling Alvarado, 6625 Alvarado Road, San Diego: This student-housing project features 320 apartments. The asking rent for units ranges from $1,025 for a studio to $3,100 for a 4-bedroom unit. Move-in is scheduled for August. Amenities include swimming pools, fitness center and tanning beds. Photo courtesy of the Dinerstein Companies.

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Median home prices may be down nearly 40 percent from their 2005 highs, but most residents still feel affordability needs attention.

The San Diego Foundation’s “Our Greater San Diego Vision” project focused on housing affordability Monday in the first of five focus areas in advance of the July publication of its vision for how San Diego should accommodate a projected 1.3 million more residents -- mostly born to present-day residents -- in coming decades.

An online poll of 31,000 residents, completed in February, showed that 76 percent of participants said making housing more affordable is an important or very important priority for the region’s future. Only 9 percent said the issue is not important and 15 percent were neutral.

However, Lori Holt Pfeiler, the foundation’s associate vice president and a former Escondido mayor, said housing concerns some groups more than others. For example, 80 percent of young people aged 18-34 rank affordability as important. But only 66 percent of people aged 55 and over agree.

“Seniors didn’t really care,” she said, “because they already have a house.”

For Hispanics and African-Americans, it’s 84 percent important, compared with 77 percent of Asians and 72 percent for whites.

Income-wise, there’s no surprise: 43 percent of those earning more than $200,000 think affordability is important, compared with 83 percent of those earning less than $50,000.

Bolstering the public attitude, the foundation said, is the gap between San Diego and the U.S. in the price/income ratio. Between 1981 and 2001, the average locally was 4.76 and nationally, 3.09. In 2009, it was about 6 locally and 3 nationally.

In other words, San Diegans with the same income as the national average paid about twice as much for a home.

There are two solutions -- boost income or reduce home prices.

Pfeiler said other parts of the foundation survey found that growing numbers of locals prefer close-in living with shorter commutes and less space to maintain. That's the housing-price side.

As for incomes, economic development in a variety of targeted fields, as identified by the foundation, should help improve households’ finances.

And to boost incomes, it will take better education and a higher quality of life, according to the survey.

"All four of these (segments of the survey) are interrelated," she said. "They all have to be hitting at different points. Adding them all up together will increase incomes and provide more attainable housing."